The Patina of Our Beloved Watches

The patina is a bit like Alchimy.

There is no golden rule to get a very nice patina, it's much more a question of time than artificial means.

When I think that some prefer to change their old dial for a brand new...

Let's say it like that:

The Patina is the soul of our beloved watches.

Here, no Clinical Beauty, just strength, charm, and character:



Less " dirty ", but not less charming, from dark brown ( radium ), to creamy indexes:



A bit darker?



When the Imperfection reaches Perfection, here's a String Ray looking dial:







Well, without macro details, the Beauty is easier to get:





Impressive, isn' t it?

In this case, this stunning outcome is due to a flaw in the watch water resistance, which leaded to a beautiful accident.

Do you prefer them more sensual?



You must have in mind that we talk, here, of 50 or 40 years old Watches, which were Tool Watches, not being kept in a draw!

Watches which had a life, and a tough one.

Here, a very nice Omega SM 300, 44 Years old...

Look at this dial, because the Patina is also about the dial...Grained, black matt, with a superb contrast due to these " honey" indexes.



As we speak about dials, here are 2 of the most impressive watches I know:

Longines Diver Vintage:





Panerai 6154 aka Small Egitiano:





These Brown dials are really magic, fascinating.

The nuances are just like if Time was an Artist creating a painting, a Masterpiece!

Sobriety too can be very appealing.

Have a look on these next dials...

The Black fades to Grey, the Yellow fades to brown.

Sober but so classy:





Matching or non matching?

This is another effect of the Patina, as sometimes, with Time, hands come in a different color than indexes ( hence the expression " no matching ), like here, wit this JLC Master Mariner Deep Sea:





Or here, with this Lovely Polaris:



Same spectacular look on a few Panerai Watches:





Matching hands and indexes are not bad at all, either...

Here, a gorgeous Mark XI, with this dark brown red Radium Hands and indexes:





On this last pic, you will see that the patina is not really the same between hands and indexes.

And here, an Old Panerai Radiomir 3646:



Clearly non matching, but what a gorgeous outcome, don't you think?

While preparing this post, I was wondering if non matching was more historically correct than matching, without finding an absolute answer, as it seems that it depends of the brands, models, era, etc...

It may be an interesting debate...

But in both cases, we are stunned by the sublime outcome...

And when you think you saw all, there is always a surprise for you, in this magic world of Patina...

Please admire a pic posted by Philipps...



So, now, it's up to you to feed this post, and to share with us your thoughts and pics!

Enjoy!

Best.

Nicolas This message has been edited by amanico on 2009-08-03 02:04:09 This message has been edited by AnthonyTsai on 2009-08-04 13:34:30